Just a collection of words and phrases she had read elsewhere. Things that never would have occurred to her before, but seemed to apply so well once she heard them. She had never wanted to live a rehearsed life, but she seemed bound to the mistakes of everyone else.

And so when she opened her mouth to explain herself...to him, to everyone...the words that tripped out were never hers. They were scripted. Planned long before the events that caused them, and yet so far from everything she wanted to express.

She wanted to express that what she knew and what she felt could never align. Her reason kept her from falling too hard, but her reason was never enough to let her fall. If she could push the door open and step out -- and only fall, fall, fall through the light because there was no step outside the door. The only way forward was an endless, interminable, eternal, everlasting fall through/into/between light.

But she could only press her ear against that door -- straining to hear, hoping that she heard, hoping that she hadn't heard because there was nothing to hear, desiring to hear, but fearing there was nothing there. Nothing nothing nothing.

She couldn't say that her favorite part of any relationship was before it started. That uncertainty mixed with sweet hope and the kind of twinge you can only get when you accidentally brush someone's hand before the owner of that hand is actually yours.

Because that was the same as saying you love the ghost of a person. The shadow of an idea. A projection of your ideals without commitment.

It was like saying she could only love something that only existed within herself.______

picture creds go to Izzy Cho, and her tumblr. You can follow here. Most of my writing blurbs are inspired by pictures I find on her tumblr.